Is it my imagination, or is this true in every single walk of life? People that do something a lot think they know more about said thing than the staff running it. This is most certainly true in my line of work. Welcome, to the world of the frequent flyer. No arguments over baggage, no fuss, no questions. One would be forgiven for thinking then, that these passengers are the easiest to deal with. Most simple, certainly. Easiest, no - because they are by the far the most impolite. When something becomes a regular habit, one expects it to be seamless, speedy and unremarkable. Well, that is exactly what we endeavour to achieve. What the frequent flyer doesn't quite seem to grasp though, is that sometimes not everything will go his way. Sometimes seat 3D is already occupied. I'm sorry sir that this is the seat you 'ALWAYS' have, but I'm afraid it has been taken by someone else (someone who is no less important than you sir).
I fail to see how this is in any way my fault. Of course I could argue that such knowledgable passengers should be perfectly aware that it is more than within their power to reserve their own seats in advance. Yet to the frequent flyer - who is more often than not a business person - my lack of ability to provide them with the seat they require is the sort of annoyance which ruins their day. How dare I inconvenience them such, do I not know what a stressful schedule of meetings they have today in Germany??
I'm aware that this is rather a defensive gripe of a blog entry... but I will continue in this vain - I guess I'm just in that kind of mood... Perhaps the biggest irritant is the overwhelming impression that, as I said at the beginning, certain of these frequent flyers have done so SO often that they now believe they know my job better than me. I can't deny that when one does something often, one becomes accustomed to it and how it works; I will concede that these passengers, to a certain extent, know the drill - I've ordered the same coffee in Costa so many times that I feel I could confidently work the coffee machine purely based on having watched their staff do so. However, I cannot imagine that I would ever QUESTION someone who is providing a service to me, no matter how often I had benefited from that service. How can I possibly know what new training they've had, what tweaks to the rules have been made, whether that particular person's manner of doing things is slightly different from the last I dealt with? The reality is despite what I THINK, I KNOW damned well that I haven't a clue how to make a Costa cappuccino, so would never dream of telling a member of their staff they've not done it right. If only the frequent flyer felt the same. Alas no, things don't go their way when they did last time... therefore I can't do my job properly.
My philosophy in response to this is simple: treat every passenger the same way. So, I'm afraid, that you can clock up as many air miles as you like...you will be asked the same security questions as everyone else. You may have flown 10 times this month.... but I've checked in 10 people in the last 5 minutes!
No comments:
Post a Comment